Western Nebraska Community College Branding

Known locally as Western, the Western Nebraska Community College logo conveys historical and progressive meaning for a growing community college.

With the recommendations and findings from a brand positioning audit, Aespire collaborated with Propeller Communications to develop the community college branding for Western Nebraska Community College.

The Challenge

With distinct personalities at each of a multi-campus community college, a cohesive brand was found to be critical to differentiating WNCC and unifying the campuses under one identity.

Starting with the research and recommendations from the Propeller Communications brand audit, Aespire was engaged to explore a new community college logo.

It was recommended that the logo or symbol design should combine simple elements that combine a solid form and a sense of motion or movement. It was clear that there was considerable equity in the WNCC acronym.

A visual audit of competing institutions was created to assist stakeholders with evaluating the potential solutions in the context of the region and marketplace.

Several solutions were developed that incorporated the WNCC acronym and the full name of the institution. Our insight into the stakeholder findings indicated that there would potentially be strong support for a typographic solution of the letter “W” — and what letter W does not contain the letterform N?

Beyond the visual mark, the brand development process also incorporated typographic branding evaluations, from the typefaces incorporated into the marks to the support typefaces for each identity.

The solutions that were developed by Aespire solved the challenge by creating a ligature that visually combines the W and N into one glyph, unified by the W (for Western) and suggesting distinct personalities with the initials WN (Western Nebraska). The stakeholder’s response to this innovative solution was enthusiastic, especially as the mark still combined the solid form and sense of motion (white space that travels through the logo).

In addition to the new brand for the community college, the WNCC logo has proven to be an effective college athletic logo, suitable for screenprinting and embroidery.